Chapter 9: The Fire in Which We Burn

Chapter 9:  The Fire in Which We Burn

"Do I need to sign a contract for this?"

She deflates slightly.  Her eyes search over my face as she asks, "Is it really that awful a request?"
Yes.
She steps out onto the porch, closing the door behind her.  "It's nothing, all right?  Just, let's go to the park.  We can walk and talk, and you can get me a drink, and that's that."
I stare down at her, now actually surprised.  "You want me to go to the park at night?"
She nods quickly.
"If you want me to get raped that badly, I could just head out into the forest."

"Oh come on, you'll have me with you."  She grabs my arm and tries to set off down the stairs.  She doesn't make it; I'm about twice her size and I'm not going anywhere.  When she sees that I'm not moving she actually tries pouting.  "No one's going to go after you with me hanging off your arm, all right?"
"It's not ten seconds in and your plan is to hang off my arm all night."
She steps away from me, taking a deep breath.  Exasperated, she asks "Why can't you make up your mind?  You want love before you marry, but you seem to be avoiding anything where you might fall in love.  What do you want?"
You know what?  Fine.  "I want to ask a damn question," I snap.  "I don't want your life to by my damn responsibility, and I don't want to be some simpering househusband."

It doesn't feel good letting it out.  It doesn't feel bad, either.  I don't feel different at all for getting it off my chest.  What hurts is seeing her step back, like she's afraid of me; it's seeing her expression.  I let it go, but I'm left wishing I had just held it in.
She answers slowly.  "My life is my own.  My father was a househusband, as was my mother's father.  They didn't simper, and they were never unhappy."  I'm about to respond but she doesn't give me the chance.  "If you want love, then why do you push away everyone who offers it?"

I'm just doing what I want to do.  That's my first thought.  But do I have an answer for that question?  "Maybe I don't care to be 'offered' random tacklerape instead."
That's enough to put her off the line of questioning, but it isn't what she's asking and we both know it.  Maybe this is just introversion.  Or hells, maybe I just don't like dealing with people when they're looking at me like I'm a piece of meat.
But she isn't now.  Now she's looking at me like I'm a bitter asshole, which I can't say I'm not.

She lets out a resigned sigh and asks "So what did you want to know?"
Is this how things are going to be?  Random arguments and occasional insight?  "Are there other ways to get spirit energy?"
She starts talking immediately.  "The new SE dinners, manastones and powerstones, a handful of spells that transfer energy," she offers, then stops.  She lifts a hand to her mouth and sticks one of her claws between her teeth, thoughtfully chewing on it.  "Aside from the last two, nothing that would produce enough to actually matter.  Men naturally give off a faint aura of it to begin with, which is how succubi can sense them and how certain races can track their husbands, but it's not enough to live off of."

I see.  I wasn't really expecting anything different, I guess.  If there was an easy alternative then the wars probably wouldn't have been so destructive.  I remember reading about guerrilla tactics using chemical agents to kill all of the humans in a region while a unit of mages would seal it off, leaving the mamono to starve to death.  It was incredibly inefficient.  It wasn't used because of its efficiency, though, but because of its efficacy.  "Surrender, or watch your husbands drown on their own blood while you starve."  In the modern age, the only word for it would be terrorism.

"That's not what you were looking for, I take it?"  She's staring at me with a look of concern.  I guess my expression probably turned sour while I remembered my old history lessons.
"No, but thanks anyway."  I walk down the steps and out toward the road.  She starts to head back inside.
"Hey," I shout.  She shifts to look at me, her expression flat, but troubled.

I lift up my light and point down the road, "The park's that way."

---

We walk in silence until we arrive.  It's awkward, but at least the view is nice.  The park has a particularly pleasing quality to it when everything is cast in the deep blue of night.  The grounds, trees, and trails are all similar shades of that deep blue-black.  The sky's clear, but that just serves to highlight the growing near-gibbous moon that causes random warning signals to fire through a few neurons.  The air has gotten cool enough to sting the throat, but somehow that just enhances the feeling of peaceful quiet.

I look down on the girl following me, musing that at least I know that she's following me now.  She's still only wearing that thin shirt and pants.  "Are you gonna be all right?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"You don't have a coat."
"Well, neither do you," she answers rebelliously.
"You didn't bring your own heater."
I immediately feel her latch onto my arm, "Sure I did."
Touché.

It's a minute of going through the grass before we hit one of the paths that criss-crosses the few acres of old growth trees.  I know better than to assume that it's as empty as it looks, but Rina was probably right; anything that saw me now would leave me be.  The path is filled in with small stones, causing each step to release a loud crunch that seems deafening in the otherwise silent park.  There isn't even the background buzz of insects due to the cool of the autumn air.

We stop by one of the small pavilions to grab a pair of drinks.  I'm not sure what she's planning when I get back, but her tails are flicking back and forth.  It's making me nervous.
"Thanks," she says before I even start handing her the drink.  "So, tell me about yourself."
Oh wow, what a terrible question.  The hells do I say?  "Well, ah," is as far as I get before my mouth and my brain both discover that the other doesn't know what to do.  What, does she want personality?  Hobbies?  "I'm into blood sports.  If it's not the Most Dangerous Game then I'm not interested."  Yeah, sarcasm, that's what I need right now.

She scowls at me afterward.  "Fine, then let me ask you this:  What are you looking for in a wife?"  The question would be hard enough without her looking up at me like she's already upset at the answer.  "You've thought about it before, right?"
Of course I have.  I think every guy probably thinks about that, at least in areas where mamono are common.  Actually, I wonder if guys my age in mostly human cities consider the question.  Is it as relevant to them?  I know that they typically get married much later in life.  "I have."
"Well?"  She leans in slightly, not that her weight is terribly noticeable.  It's actually kind of weird how light she is.
I can use this to turn her down.  It's not even difficult.  "I'd like an equal, not a girl who wants me to be a househusband.  I'd like someone who's fine putting off having kids for, let's say, ten years or so.  I'd like an honest girl.  Sometimes, though, I think I just want to be left alone."  I'm not sure where it happened, but part of the way through I realized that I was answering honestly.

She doesn't answer.  Not at first, anyway.  After another minute of my nerves being frayed by the constant crunch of loose rock underfoot I finally hear "I'm honest."
I don't even pause to think of an answer.  "You spent a month making me think you were a cat."
She immediately switches tracks.  "Would it really be so bad, though?  Living a traditional, comfortable life?  Keeping the house, raising the kids, giving me energy?"  She tries to pull my arm closer, but ends up pulling herself closer to my arm.  "How many thousands of men have found happiness like that, even without choosing to, or expecting to?"

There's something about the way that she pronounced those last words.  It's odd.  There was too much stress, too much enunciation.
"Well?"  She's looking up at me again.  When she relaxes, it's almost like looking down at a little sister.  Like how Cara used to be.
"How many ran away after the Unification?  How many would have if it had been possible?"  Without thinking, I just rattle off the same arguments I read online or hear in the news.  There's nothing genuine here.  Nothing that I've personally thought out.  There aren't any answers.

"But wouldn't you be happy?"

For some reason I find myself actually wondering through that question.  Would I?  It'd get dull eventually, wouldn't it?  Cooking and cleaning, fine, I do some of that already.  It's not like I couldn't adapt.  I don't think I'd mind handling children, either.  Though these would also be kittens, so I guess that could be something of a headache.  Even if I found out that I was generally all right with it, it's still not something I really want.  And the thing that would really get me would be something else.

"No.  Not with someone who looked down on me."
If I didn't know better, I'd think she took offense to that.  "They're not looked down on!  They're still partners, just with the wife at the lead."  She pulls away, moving a few feet ahead of me and turns so that she walks backward down the trail.  "No one used to feel this way.  For all of recorded history mamono have lived like this.  It's just now that there's this whole movement going on that people are trying to say that being a husband means being a slave, or being something less than what you were.  It's not, though.  The problem is that this is actually a discussion.  The very existence of the argument is preventing marriages and is dissolving traditional families."

She stops in front of me, forcing me to stop with her.  "Birth rates are still lowering, and it has nothing to do with the lower energy levels in the atmosphere.  If this keeps up, what's going to happen?"
She stands there for a moment, catching her breath.  "Feel better?"  She takes another breath to start answering, but I interrupt.  "So what?  Should men never want to become something other than husbands of mamono?  Should you all go back to the traditional methods of getting husbands?  Or are you saying that the desire to be a free man is just some modern construct?  Or is it that divorce should be abolished?"  I look down at her for a long moment.  "Just what are you saying?"

"I'm saying I shouldn't be demonized for wanting a life like my parents had."  She takes another breath.  "I'm saying that no one objected to being househusbands thirty years ago."  She turns and we start walking again.  "What's going to happen when some races start to go extinct?"
"What should be done?"
I feel her grab my wrist.  Or rather, the manacle on it.  "If you hadn't had this, we'd both be happy right now.  We'd have a comfortable life together.  You wouldn't have wanted to run away."  Her voice is wistful, distant.
So that's your answer?  Go back to the good ol' days of rape and slavery?  "Even if no one called it slavery, that's still what it was."
"You lock yourself in your room every night.  You're not a slave because you want to be there."
"So why did so many men run away?"

There's another long pause as we pass into another part of the park.  The world seems to dim as the canopy of trees blots out the sky in patches.  It's beautiful, if still worrying.  I imagine that it's all the more beautiful for Rina, considering that Nekomata have better night vision.  The path winds slightly through the copse of trees, creating an atmosphere of separation from the rest of the world.

"I'm not saying that there weren't any abusive wives, or that slaves didn't exist for, say, the Amazons.  But that doesn't mean that the entire system was wrong.  For every man who ran away, dozens stayed, happily married to loving wives."  The trees start thinning out again, leaving us walking back into an open field near to where we began.  "I think you would've stayed."
"You obviously don't know me as well as you think."
"Do you think your father would've married an Echidna if she hadn't asked?"
The question dredges back up an old, nearly forgotten thought.  "If she hadn't asked, he'd probably have killed her like he killed however many other mamono he came across.  He was an adventurer; I don't know if he would've even blinked."  I wonder if my voice sounded bitter, or if it was as flat as it felt.

I'm not surprised that the conversation died after that.  Maybe I wanted it to be over.  I don't want to think about the life I would've lived had the world not changed.  The wars were horrific, but the end result has made life better for those moderate, reasonable people who hid while the insane and megalomaniacal killed each other off.  There are still problems, but they're understandable ones being faced by sensible people.  The world's gotten better overall, and only the traditionalists on both sides think otherwise.

A few minutes later we're back where we started.  We turn back toward the road without saying anything.  It's been a long enough night without anymore conversation.  I end up walking her back to her house.  It just felt normal to do that, though it might just be my subconscious trying to get her not to watch me in the middle of the night.  It's only before the yard of her house that she speaks again.  "Do you think we'll do this again sometime?"
My reflexes almost answer before I can.  This could be another thing to get rid of her.
But I think I kind of enjoyed it.
She's going to suffer if I say yes.
Her life is her own responsibility, not mine.

"I don't know."
With that, I leave.

---

Tera has fallen asleep on the couch while holding an empty carton of toffee cookies.

It takes me a while before I realize that I haven't moved for a few minutes.  It's too engrossing to watch.  She's sort of curled around it and is holding it to her chest like it's her treasure.  Apparently she just fell asleep holding it like this; her face covered in crumbs with a line of drool running down her chin.  I don't know if I can draw my eyes from something this adorable.

"Hey, kiddo," I whisper.
She leans in further, curling up into a slightly tighter ball.  I poke her cheek lightly, causing her to giggle in her sleep.
There's a moment of discomfort as my chest seems to be compressed by some great pressure.
"Tera, wake up."
Her eyes immediately open and she smiles her broad, mostly toothy smile.  She takes a deep breath to say something, which I immediately interrupt with a raised hand and a shushing motion.

"If you sleep like this, everyone'll find out that you stole the cookies."
She recoils in shock, only to answer in her loudest possible whisper.  "No I didn't!"  Her face is a mix of righteous indignation that someone would even suggest such a thing and abject horror that her secret was discovered.  Mostly the latter.  I point toward the box, and there's a second where she slowly turns to look downward.

"You're also up way past your bedtime."
"Well, you were scstaying up, too," she half-shouts, bent on finding a battle that she can win now.
"How'd you know about that?"
"You left your TV on."
I can feel my hairs raising.  I didn't leave that thing on.  Hells, I haven't touched that thing in months.  It's just sort of there now.  Someone's been in my room while I was out.

I clench my fist and shake it defiantly as I whisper-shout in my corniest cartoon villain voice, "Curses, you've outsmarted me again, Tera!"  This earns me a giggle, which I use as a distraction to ruffle her hair.  "Now get to bed, and hide your spoils first.  And wash your face; you've got some evidence to get rid of."

With her stealthily slinking off, I have but one concern.  I make my way up the stairs and down the hallway.  Sure enough, there's a shifting, colorful light shining out from the edges of my door.  Fine, so someone went in there, but why in the hells would they leave that on?  Or even turn it on in the first place?

I open the door to find an Angel in my room.
"Oh hi," she all but shouts, causing me to cringe violently at the noise.  Everything slows down as I wait for the cries of alarm, or else the explosion of sound as Cara tries to pounce on whatever's invaded our house.  Instead, the silence returns.  Just as the hammering in my chest starts to calm down she calls out, "Why are you leaving the door open?"

As quickly as I can without making any noise I make my way inside, lock the door, and turn on her.  "Will you be quiet," I whisper angrily.  "You could've woken up the whole house."
She turns back the the screen, watching some terrible, decades-old cartoon.  "Don't worry, I was careless last time.  Now you're the only one who can hear me.  You're the only one who's pure."
Pure?  "What, because I don't have any demonic energy?"
She starts to nod, but stops.  "Well, sort of."
What the hells does that mean?

No, forget about that.  Why is she here?  The question causes my heart rate to spike and my muscles to grow rigid.  Just moving my lips highlights how twitchy and tense I've become as the muscles jerk into place.  "Why did you come here?"
"I wanted to use your television," she answers without moving.
After that, the only sounds are those of lasers, explosions, and cheesy one-liners.  My only thought is that at least my heart is calming down again.  My muscles suddenly feel sore and ache dully.
I need sleep.  I need lots of sleep.  There's an Angel in my room, and it doesn't matter at all.  She isn't doing anything.  This is just my life.  It's all right.  I collapse on my bed and wait.  It takes a while, but eventually my heart relaxes and my lungs stop demanding quite so much air.

I'm soothed to sleep by the calming voice of Insidior swearing vengeance upon the Valianus Corps for once again stopping his attempt at world conquest.

---

I am looking at a pair of brilliant blue eyes, framed by short locks of golden hair.  The world lurches horribly as my chest feels like it's collapsing inward and my heart slams against my ribcage like it's trying to escape.  I bolt backwards, slamming my head against the headboard with enough force to rattle my teeth and make everything in my mouth taste metallic.
"Ah!"  From somewhere nearby Cami lets out a small shout of worry, before I feel a pair of arms wrap around my head.  "Hush now, hush," she says, rubbing the back of my head.  "It's all right now."

It takes a while for my body to calm down again, but she does help.  Once that's done, though, my mind takes up the slack.  The hells was that?  What was with that reaction?  Was I trying to escape?  And why?  This is Cami; I doubt she'd willingly harm anything.  Or was I just startled by someone being so close?  Yeah, that was probably it.  I just jumped because she doesn't seem to comprehend personal boundaries.
"I'm sorry."
That just makes it worse.  "Don't be.  I don't know why I reacted like that."
She shakes her head.  "No, it is my fault.  I didn't know that dreaming was so horrible for humans, and my curiosity overcame me."

For once, I'd really like to hear one sentence from her that I can actually understand.  "It's fine.  Don't worry about it."
She doesn't stop, though.  For a while she holds onto me, arms wrapped around my head.  If it were anyone else, this would feel incredibly awkward.  Hells, even with mom it's uncomfortable.  With her, though, it doesn't feel like that.  It's just comforting.

A question begins to form in my mind, and the comfort immediately ends.  "So hey, where are you staying these days?
Her hand stops and she pulls back to look me in the eye.  "Well, I don't necessarily need to 'stay' anywhere, so I've been wandering the city."
That's it?  "You've just been walking around for the last few weeks?"
Her expression grows distant as her eyes gaze somewhere past my own.  "I don't need to eat or to sleep.  I don't have anything to do, either.  So I wait, and I walk."  There's a moment of pause, as though she's thinking, but her face doesn't betray any thoughtfulness or emotion.  "I suppose I could always return, but without Him there the light is gone, and it feels so empty."

The heavens.  She's talking about the heavens, isn't she?  "Wouldn't that still be home?"
She shakes her head sadly.  "Not anymore.  Maybe if I had some task, or something to do, but as it is I would simply be saddened to see how diminished and cold it has become."
"But you've got somewhere that you could go, don't you?  Somewhere with people to talk to?  At least you should have a place of your own.  Maybe another cathedral, like the one before."

She looks back to me and her lips finally begin to pull back into the slightest smile.  "You're doing it again."  In an instant Her cheerful smile returns in full and she laughs, more boisterously and vibrantly than before.

"Well, how about here?"